Julius

Just under 10 to go. Would love to see an England win, but Spain have been, by far and away, the best team in Germany over the last month. If they put in a performance on par with their worst at the tournament so far I think they come away with it. But with how England have turned up again, and again, and again at the last moment, this is one of those matches that could be 0-0, 1-0, 5-0 or 3-3. So long as we're not 2 goals or more behind with 10 to spare, I feel like we'll be in with a shot. The obvious duels are on the flanks but the middle of the pitch is where I think this one is going to be decided. Expectations in check but let's keep those fingers crossed, eh?

Congrats @FalcoLombardi!!

UEFA's decision to not have assists help decide top goalscorer has to be one of the more baffling of the relatively inconsequential decisions they've made in a while. There are SIX players on three goals, and if neither one of Kane and Olmo score tonight, the Golden Boot is going to be shared between all six. Who would win if assists were considered, you ask? As things stand, Olmo on 3 goals + 2 assists in 5 games, who has been one of the best players of the tournament and would be more than deserving of it in my opinion. Barmy.

Food delivered; nerves fried. Is tonight the night where we can finally start talking just a little less about '66?

The ESRB rating for the game has just confirmed that Link will be a playable character. This could just pertain to what I imagine is the intro that we saw in the trailer, though I could also see Link being unlocked for some potential end- or post-game content?

Really, genuinely surprised it has taken this long. We've had close to a decade of this guy in politics and after all of the nonsense, NOW, HERE, LIKE THIS is how you go about it? ...and then imagine waiting this long and then really just badly grazing him. Not to condone the actions, obviously, but yeah...what a dumbass. RIP to the person who died and hopefully the two others being reported as critically injured make a full and speedy recovery. Totally agree. His audience is already mental, this somehow elevates him further in their eyes. This is how even the most vile of people become deified - they need to be seen as some sort of unkillable target - and it absolutely now becomes a historic image like you say. The only way it would have done anything would be if they hit the target and got the end result. Again, I'm not condoning violence here or saying this is right – but you have all this prep time and you whiff? It's insane to me. This feels like the kind of thing trump can easily use in his favour now to push for a call to arms. And we've seen him do it before, so...feel sorry for a lot of America and what's coming. As if it wasn't already going badly with everything surrounding Biden, it feels like it just got a whole lot worse.

I've been doing a much better job than I typically do this year of picking up games I'll get to ASAP rather than filling up my (digital and physical) shelves, but a Nintendo Switch first-party bundle with the games at £25 a pop? Yeah, ordered, zero hesitation on my part thanks for sharing Ashley! I actually started making a list of Switch games I hadn't picked up a couple of months ago and wanted to at some point, but as soon as the list started to get a little long gave up because of the massive investment it would clearly be. Think I'll try to make looking out for deals like these my main way of picking up those Switch games I haven't got to unless I urgently want to get to them! Absolutely insane deal! Thankfully (for my sanity) I already have Skyward Sword HD on my shelf, so don't feel bad about missing out EDIT: the MK8D Booster Course Pass is only £8.97 from Currys. Which is a pretty great deal too!

Bosman continues to nail it: The post-credits breakdown of that Xbox ad really cracked me up

All-aluminium Analogue Pockets announced: They look reeeeeeeeeally nice Price of a PS5 and a bit though, with the Switch 2 potentially less than 9 months away? Think I'll wait

Reminder to anyone interested in the Game Vouchers offer that this offer it is set to end on Sunday!

Because we're N-Europe and not N-America, obviously!

Seems like it'll tickle the fancy of some here

Glad they got the recast out of the way ASAP. Looks...fine? I'm finding it really hard to get hyped for many MCU projects these days, we've had it a few too many times in the last few years where a solid trailer results in a bang average film or worse, so... Hope it turns out well, but I'm not holding my breath. What I'm really not looking forward to just how toxic conversation is going to get around having a black Captain America with his own film, probably going to be much louder than it usually is with that corner of the internet what with the US elections and the run-in taking us up pretty much until this releases.

A trio of games previously unreleased outside of Japan - Densetsu no Starfy 1-3 - arrive on NSO for GBA...today!

Famitsu have uploaded 30 minutes (okay, 29 minutes and 4 seconds...but who's counting?) of gameplay on their YouTube channel: Music sounds delightful

This is the first night where we've been the best team in a match the entire thing. Brilliant goal from Simons and a few beautiful counters aside, the Dutch didn't deserve to win tonight at all. If we somehow win it's hard to argue against Bellingham being Player of the Tournament for me, regardless of the number of goals, assists, etc. His overhead clearly changed the mentality. We owe Real and Don Carlo a big debt for teaching him about that black magic Italy were the best team in 2021, Spain have been this year. There's still a Spanish-sized mountain to overcome in them, but as we've been saying, these defences look leaky and they could be there for the taking. The tournament tree looks like it was made in FIFA. It's not pretty but I hate that getting to the final again, and having a solid shot at taking it, means Southgate might be around for another cycle. He's done great to get us hear but three semi-finals in four major tournaments, including two finals, with how young most of this squad is – this is dynasty potential stuff similar to what we've seen with France over the last decade. All they have to show for it is a single World Cup; I hope we don't make the same mistakes. I'm telling you he made a deal with the devil, it's the only explanation. To be honest, I was shocked he came off tonight with extra time potentially on the way. Maybe it's the fact that we'd had to go the extra mile in both the Ro16 and QF, so he was shattered, but it's not what I would have expected. I think it weirdly works in our favour, almost lulls the opposition defence into a state of false confidence. They're not needing to defend in the box against a tall and physical striker for 80'+ and then he's hooked off with someone who is much more direct and is also tall and physical, who is backing up into defenders and sticking up top as a target man. I'm tired. Really solid semis these last couple of nights!

We can't keep getting away with this Gareth can't keep getting away this But we have been, we are, we could do one more time yet

A striker? In the box? From open play? In the 90th minute? For England?!

It's getting very nervous now that we're down to the last 5...

I'm guessing Gareth said to carry on as we were, not realising that the Dutch would change up their system which has successfully stifled our play. They've overloaded the midfield and there's nowhere for us to make those bursting runs and short and quick passes to progress things through the middle like we were, and they're happy to contain us on the flanks. I'm not sure Gareth knows how to counter that. Warming up for when he needs to win us another penalty

Shaw on at half-time is the change I wanted to see and thought we had a 0% chance of getting. Let's see how this goes.

Best half of the tournament so far for us. A long way to go, we need to make timely subs between 60' and 70' to keep this pace and control, otherwise...yeah. Foden, Mainoo, Bellingham, Walker and Saka are running things out there. To go back to the pen, though... Fully agree. It's a 50/50 where both players have the right to go for the ball, Kane gets the shot off and follows through which is exactly what causes the contact in the first place. We've seen them given, we've seen them not, it's not obvious at all (because the ref clearly didn't even clock it until VAR pulled it up), and so shouldn't have gone to VAR in the first place for me. The yellow on top of the pen is INCREDIBLY harsh. For me, as someone who used to play as a defender, I'd be absolutely livid if that were given against me. That ref wouldn't hear the end of it. Reminder that it's Zwayer refereeing, by the way, who made some awfully atrocious calls in the Netherlands v Romania Ro16 match which ruined the game, so, potentially more mistakes to come

Feels alien watching a quality side set out to absorb the pressure from an England squad at a major tournament

What a shot from Foden. Seems really on it tonight. Best 30' of England so far at this tournament. Still waiting for the drop-off. There's no difference for some of us with how our nations have performed at this tournament

Same, I had flashbacks to France in 2022